ICM Partners Trying To Head Off Interns’ Class Action Lawsuit

By Dominic Patten on Aug 29, 2014 12:32 pm

EXCLUSIVE: ICM Partners is moving fast to quash a potential class action suit brought by interns, Deadline has learned, that could shine the spotlight on one of Hollywood’s dirty, not-so-secret practices. ICM head of HR Karen Abrams began making a series of calls to former interns this week seeking information supporting ICM’s intern program. The move comes after Kimberly Behzadi and Jason Rindenau, the plaintiffs and former interns filed a motion in federal court on Tuesday for reclassification (read it here) of the suit. If granted, it could reveal how much work essentially unpaid assistants perform at ICM and other agencies while they’re seeking academic credit — a practice that runs afoul of labor laws. “We do not comment on on-going litigation,” an ICM spokesperson said today.

ICM’s lawyers filed in late July to get the matter dismissed and moved to arbitration. But Abrams is now contacting former interns before Behzadi and Rindenau’s attorneys do. “She was reading what was obviously a prepared script given to her by someone, their lawyers, I would assume,” one ex-ICM intern said after talking to the agency VP this week. This person had not been contacted by the plaintiffs’ lawyers but only Abrams so far. “She said that a group of former interns had filed a lawsuit against ICM claiming that they were actually employees and demanding unpaid wages as well as attorneys’ fees and other damages,” the former ingtern told Deadline. “She said that ICM had retained lawyers and would be defending themselves against the suit, and that their lawyers were going to be contacting all their former interns next week in order to find interns to depose who can give information about ICM’s program.”

Earlier this summer, Abrams had submitted an affidavit to the court supporting ICM’s motion to dismiss.

First filed on June 17, the action against ICM is now seeking to include all those who participated in the agency’s intern program from August 26, 2011 until “the date of final judgment in this action,” said this week’s classification order motion. With ICM Partners generally having three intern sessions annually of about 40 participants each, that could reach into the hundreds for the potential class action. ICM did not have an intern program in Fall 2013 or Spring 2014.

Behzadi, who was an itern at ICM’s NYC offices from January-May 2012 and a floater assistant from November to mid-December 2012, recounts in her initial complaint that interns at ICM performed many of the duties of regular employees without the benefit of being paid. Unsurprising to anyone who has ever been to an agency, others I spoke to confirm interns’ actual duties. “We had a once-a-week lunch lecture from agents on what working at an agency was really about, so I guess that fulfilled the academic requirements,” one former intern at ICM in 2013 told me. “Other than that, it was getting coffee, data entry, scheduling and taking calls.”

Another former ICM intern alleges being assigned the work of a paid assistant after that person was pink-slipped. “I even started handling certain emails using the assistant’s email address after I started taking over the tasks from the assistant that was fired,” the ex-intern said. “All of those things are tasks that a paid assistant should be doing. And I think it is fair to say that a lot of those things would translate to all interns around Hollywood.

“Is every single agency, studio, and production company in this town violating the law when it comes to internships?” the source added. “Of course they are. The trade-off for the interns is that having an internship is the best way to make contacts who can get you an actual job.”

Justin Swartz, Rachel Bien and Sally Abrahamson of NYC’s top labor-issues firm Outten & Golden are representing the plaintiffs and any future additions to the suit. Swartz is also handing legal duties on a class action launched against NBCUniversal by a former MSNBC intern and an ex-Saturday Night Live intern. Elise Michelle Bloom and Steven Hurd of Proskauer Rose’s NYC office and Michelle Annese of the firm’s Newark office represent ICM in this matter.

78 Comments

• on Aug 29, 2014 12:38 pm

Why wouldn’t a company defend itself?

Lacey Lewis • on Aug 29, 2014 12:41 pm

Obnoxious interns running rampant around the industry – not only ensuring that they are blacklisted from every relevant company in the industry but also making it more difficult for others looking to get their foot in the door.

chris • on Aug 29, 2014 1:10 pm

Agreed. They should just put “Dumbass intern who sued company” at the first line of their resume. It’ll make it easier to throw away.

• on Aug 29, 2014 9:32 pm

How is filing suit obnoxious if ICM actually broke the law? I don’t see any fault in challenging the status quo of an outdated and heavily abused practice.

alex • on Aug 29, 2014 12:44 pm

hope they get that $5k each…afterward they better not hope to work in this biz though

dmr • on Aug 29, 2014 12:46 pm

Millennials

• on Aug 29, 2014 7:34 pm

So true. Millenials are the first generation, perhaps ever, to offer absolutely nothing to our culture. Millenials are a write-off generation, and hopefully the subsequent generation will self-correct.

lbell • on Aug 30, 2014 12:49 pm

Gee, that’s exactly what we used to say about Gen X. But now that you X-ers are all grown up you’re convinced you were actually working all those years. News flash, you’re worse than them.

One Opinion • on Aug 29, 2014 12:55 pm

Is there any internship program in any industry anywhere that actually complies with state law? California state law regarding internships lives in a world of unicorns and fairy princesses. It is time to change the law.

Emily • on Aug 29, 2014 12:56 pm

Good for these guys. In Hollywood, and everywhere, we should be paying our interns. End of story. That way you knock out the classism inherent in unpaid internships.

• on Aug 30, 2014 2:13 pm

EXACTLY

silkysalt • on Aug 29, 2014 12:57 pm

Unbelievable. The idea of an internship is that of opening the door to getting a job when you are finally a college graduate, and gain the experience of what the job actually entails.

Doing script coverage, knowing who is who in the business, reading clients’ material, having access to the internal workings of an agency are all benefits of working as an intern that you would not get otherwise as part of your college education.

These Millennials feel like the world owes them something, when in actuality they don’t look at the internships as an extension of their education. No film school, business, or communication program can provide the education that an internship can provide.

As these lawsuits are allowed to populate our courtrooms (taking away from legitimate cases) by over-privileged not ready for primetime players (kids), they minimize not only the education received by just being on a desk, or learning how to critically analyze a book or a script, but take away opportunities from others who actually value the knowledge they get from their experiences at a production company, studio or agency. Experiences that they would not get anywhere else in the world, that they receive by doing these so-called “mundane tasks.”

• on Aug 29, 2014 11:04 pm

ON POINT!
These kids need to go back to kinder!

silkysalt • on Aug 29, 2014 12:57 pm

(cont’d)

The unpaid internships I had when I first entered this business 20 years ago (I don’t even think I received college credit, since I had graduated a month earlier) proved incredibly valuable, and among the people I interned with 2 big producers, and a high level studio exec were developed. I can tell you without the experiences gained on the studio lot, and subsequent agency experience, I would not be where I am today. And guess what, if I needed money I supplemented my income (and saved money to move out to Los Angeles) by, get this…getting a job at night!!!! What a concept.

To the two people suing, give me a break – you were not slave labor, and I guarantee you know more about the business having done the “assistant work”, having access to those e-mails, and from reading those scripts.

Get over it, and get a paid job using the experience and contacts you made during your internship. If you performed well as an intern, your agency is definitely hoping and will help you get a paying job in this shrinking marketplace.

Bones • on Aug 29, 2014 3:20 pm

You’re an idiot. You’re archaic internship 20 years ago is nowhere near what it is like to intern in todays market.

• on Sep 3, 2014 12:30 pm

You have no idea what you are talking about, as WE HAVE INTERNS here, and they are still applicable to what is done today. You obviously have no argument, since you use the term “idiot.”

So, Bones, if you’d like to have an intellectual conversation about this matter I am happy to do so. However, I’m afraid intellectual is not in your vocabulary.

Carl Rove • on Aug 29, 2014 1:04 pm

By the end of all this there will be too few internship programs, no defined path for anyone to “get their foot in the door”, and worst of all only a trickle of new business talent will flow in. If hollywood wasn’t inbred enough.

Most of us in the industry got our asses handed to us during internships. Buck up and pay it forward and maybe you might create a network to get yourself a decent job outside of agencies. If you go around suing people no one will want to hire you.

That said, I hated my internship, it was abysmal, BUT I couldn’t have made it to where I am today without it. Thick skin. You need it to be here.

Anonymous • on Aug 29, 2014 3:12 pm

Agreed!

RPB • on Aug 29, 2014 1:11 pm

“Is every single agency, studio, and production company in this town violating the law when it comes to internships?” the source added. “Of course they are.

Actually you’re wrong as many companies have no desire to be tied up in a class action lawsuit so they’re dropping internship programs. At the end of the day tell me what taught you more about the business – taking calls and data entry or being part of a class action lawsuit where you collect $100 while the legal team splits the millions. And then complain when you can’t find a job in Hollywood.

Indeed • on Aug 29, 2014 1:44 pm

Exactly!

KC • on Aug 29, 2014 1:20 pm

I’m very torn about this issue. On the one hand, although these lawsuits certainly have legal merit (all of these places are definitely violating the law when it comes to labor standards for unpaid internships) I do feel that at this point they are all just money grabs from former interns with axes to grind. On the other hand though, the unpaid internship cycle that our industry has perpetuated (you must take unpaid internships and that is the best, and often only, way to get paid work later) is extremely problematic. Many people literally cannot afford to not get a paycheck for 6 months in order for a shot at a paid job down the road, which means that even the option of taking an unpaid internship is limited to very few people. When you get hired as an assistant at ICM you make $11 an hour, I don’t think it would kill them to give interns minimum wage.

silkysalt • on Aug 29, 2014 2:40 pm

Get a job at night. An internship is exactly what it is…it is NOT A JOB!!!!

Seriously • on Aug 29, 2014 1:22 pm

Internships at agencies are done for college credit. Should colleges pay them for turning in their homework too? You learn by doing and being in the environment. This is a joke.

Kay Gee • on Aug 29, 2014 1:23 pm

Not every company acts illegally, despite what “the source” in the article states. I’ve only worked at a couple major companies in Hollywood, but both of them seemed to be pretty legit to me. One had interns who did a lot of work, but were compensated. The other had interns who only earned academic credit and who literally did nothing. They weren’t even allowed to pick up documents from the printer. Seems like a boring internship to me, but anything more is apparently illegal. Yikes.

Truthteller • on Aug 29, 2014 1:42 pm

They should be called idioterns. They are going to ruin their careers before they even have one to win a few thousand dollars. And what exactly did they expect they would be doing as interns. Rewriting scripts? Schmoozing talent? What use would an agency or production company have for them if not to do low level grunt work in exchange for seeing how the business really works. The good news is if the suit is successful no one will ever hire interns. There will be one less way for bright, hungry, hardworking people to get a foothold in the biz.

Face the facts • on Aug 29, 2014 1:57 pm

How long are these unpaid interns supposed to work for free until they are allowed to expect compensation? Many unpaid interns I’ve seen are beyond even being recent grads (25, 26 years old and above)…Yes, they’re trying to get their foot in the door, but they’re also trying to pay the bills (Everyone sighing “Millennials” has the same criticism of boomerang kids. Face it: The industry’s dependence on unpaid interns isn’t helping.) Why pay a salary when you’ve effectively eliminated the secretarial class for free?

The “school credit” offered is a joke at most institutions– when I was in school (and had several unpaid internships), the organization never asked for proof of school credit. Even when I asked the university, I was given co-curricular credit….which didn’t show anywhere on a transcript and did not get included in credits towards graduation.

I’m grateful for the unpaid internships I had in college. I learned a ton and made incredible connections. But if interns are doing the work of employees, they deserve payment. That’s not entitlement, those are labor laws.

• on Aug 29, 2014 2:07 pm

I participated in this internship and would do it a hundred times over. It was the experience of a lifetime and I was not treated wrongly by anybody there. Internships should have work involved. I knew what I was signing up for when I got this internship.

pay the damn interns • on Aug 29, 2014 2:14 pm

Google and Facebook pay their interns a lot of money so why should Hollywood companies not do the same thing? Silicon Valley companies understand these are real jobs, low-level but they deserve to be paid salaries and at Google and Facebook the salaries are very generous. Agencies, Studios, Networks should be doing the same thing. Nobody should ever have to work for free. Minimum wage is what all interns should get paid everywhere it should be Federal law.

• on Aug 29, 2014 2:15 pm

I did unpaid internships with no college credits and I would do them again 100 times. I would have paid them if I had to for the experience and relationships they gave me. My entire career was based on what I accomplished during that time and there’s no other way I could have done that. I’m sure that’s true for thousands of people just getting started. If you want to get paid minimum wage, go work at Burger King. If you want to build a career in Hollywood where one day you can get rewarded in the tens of millions of dollars, shut the f— up and go for an unpaid intern and be grateful for what you’ve got.

• on Aug 29, 2014 2:15 pm

I worked in high tech companies as interns. Guess what? I was paid. Sure, I didn’t get academnic credit because the internship was a low paid. The money helped and it did give me some work experience. It was a cushy job because they didn’t give any responsibility. I mostly did my homework and kicked back.

These agencies and entertainment companies should be ashamed of themselves. They can afford give their interns minimum wage with academic credit. They will still get a bargain, but they abuse their priviledge and status. I’m sure the interns are suing because a job didn’t materialize after graduation. Entry-level jobs are being done by the interns, thus conversions to full-time employees are obsolete.

Former intern. Now agent • on Aug 29, 2014 2:19 pm

I would have killed for the opportunity to make calls, email and do assistant duties when I was an intern. These kids are just that. Kids. Will never be leaders or players in any meaningful way.

Betty • on Aug 29, 2014 4:34 pm

I interned for a year at a talent agency and assistant jobs at the next 2 agencies and kept my restaurant job for the first 3 years of my career or I would have starved. 7 days a week for 3 years and I’d do it all over again. That internship – no school credit- was the best thing that could have ever happened – this biz does not come easily or to the faint of heart

• on Aug 29, 2014 2:28 pm

If it was not for the valuable internship with a seasoned casting director 25 years ago I would not have the amazing career I have today. It was no pay but I was welcomed in and I stayed. In my office todays recent college graduates seeking employment will not even be considered if they have not done internships thru college and bring skills to the table. We all started at very low pay so be grateful and thankful to those who take you in and give you an opportunity. When our office advertises a assistant position we receive upwards of 1000 resumes.

AS • on Aug 29, 2014 2:29 pm

How come in the finance industry they pay interns for summer internships? At the end of those internships some of those people will be offered a job.

These interns are trained and start with a limited knowledge of their respective sector of finance.

In all fairness, interns who do jobs of assistants are really what used to be considered entry level employees that were paid for on the job training.

Former Intern • on Aug 29, 2014 2:58 pm

When I was an intern those that operated the business were different and those that were interns operated with a different mindset . We received college credit and looked at the internship as an opportunity to work and learn about the business. We did what we were asked to do regardless of whether it was doing the work of a paid personnel. On the job training has invaluable monetary and social plus factors. There was pride attached to the task and those that I worked beside regarded it as an invaluable opportunity . I worked for a Network, Top 40 radio, Public Radio, News Organization and personnel assistant to an executive. Minimum wage was $3.35 and there wasn’t the monetary inequality of today. I was well compensated by way of opportunities , contacts and experience. Today, the old guard is gone and there are far too many individual who are under qualified for their positions which enables these young interns to question why they aren’t being paid for their work. I think today that with the amount of money generated by our business that unpaid interns need to be a faint memory. With executives earning millions and hundreds of thousands as a salary we need to compensate in addition to the college credit. Minimum wage is between $8 and $10 an hour and prices have gone up in the last 30 years. The days of getting something for nothing are gone. Its a struggle today to make a living let’s have a teaching moment where the young don’t feel as if they are being taken advantage of and learn that you need to be generous and treat everyone fairly.

Ed • on Aug 29, 2014 2:59 pm

These kids are idiots. Not only are they guaranteeing that they will never get a job in this town, but they are guaranteeing that no other kids will be able to get internships. Morons.

Been there • on Aug 29, 2014 3:08 pm

So sick of hearing people defend the practice of not paying employees aka “interning.” I learned to despise it on my first and only internship, when I realized I was doing the exact same things–typing, photocopying, answering phones–I’d done as a temp secretary, only instead of earning $10-12 an hour, I was getting nothing but the same “connections” I’d been able to make while temping.

Stop fetishizing internships as some super-special-sacrifice to the dues-paying gods; all they are is an attempt to get around labor laws. Here’s a hint: In the United States, people get PAID for their work.

staaaaph! • on Aug 29, 2014 10:49 pm

THANK YOU!
I can’t stand this auto-fellating agent bullshit “I’m-a-fuckin-workhorse-blah-blah-blah”…in my day blah blah blah. Fuck you out of touch grandpa. In this country we have rules. This douchey frat shit is so boring